The Synod on the Word of God in October 2008 represented a theological and pastoral preparation for the Synod on the New Evangelization in 2012. Pope Benedict XVI begins the apostolic exhortation deriving from the former by expressing his desire “to point out certain fundamental approaches to a rediscovery of God’s word in the life of the Church as a wellspring of constant renewal” (Verbum Domini,...
The introduction of human rights language into the social mission of the Catholic Church evident in Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in terris (1963) is often seen as a delayed response to the modern world. From this perspective, Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom rode on the back of America’s centuries-old first freedom. Even the magna carta of the modern social encyclicals, Pope Leo...
